


bring your daughter to work day.

by onlyeli



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Memories, Old Aperture, this is sad but so is chell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 21:32:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10544682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyeli/pseuds/onlyeli
Summary: WORD COUNT: 952.SYNOPSIS: ‘bring your daughter to work day… that did not end well.’VERDICT: spoiler free, just kinda long.





	

it’s been easy for her to forget.

chell can push any and all memories of _before_ out of her head – they were few and far between anyway, and she had bigger things to worry about than the colour of her father’s eyes. mental segregation has been a strength of hers for some time: everything that felt like it was before the first long sleep, anything that wasn’t white walls and testing and Her voice, that was locked away nice and tight, hidden like the rat dens she so often stumbled across. yes, it’s been easy to pretend this is all she’s ever been, stoic and silent and potentially deadly. that was what she needed to be.

her determination is unmatched no matter how many bruises she gains and tumbles she takes. like a wind-up-toy, she carries on going, diligent and almost spiteful. that is, until she sees the banner.

 **bring your daughter to work day** , it proclaims, bold and proud and egotistical, just like everything else at aperture. it’s yellowing around the edges, a prime display of how the facility has begun to crumble, and the text has faded somewhat – she knows this banner, knows this hubris, knows that this is not the most recent addition to the piles of work from the young minds of aperture. the facility was so vast that it wasn’t unusual for one to become lost – they would often leave a half-dead project in one room and simply let it rot, unbothered and unworried that it would catch up to them. it seems she, too, had been practising the same unhealthy methods.

‘bring your daughter to work day… that did not end well,’ her companion tells her, a strange mimicry of sympathy in its voice. ‘aaand, forty potato batteries. embarrassing. i mean, i realise they’re children, but, still, y’know. low hanging fruit, and all that. barely science, really, is it?’ she can’t help her irritation at that comment – discouragement was rarely the way forward, and even more of her annoyance stems from the fact that once, she was one of these children. she switches off as ‘he’ talks, searching for her own wobbly handwriting amongst the overgrown and rotten potatoes.

‘baking soda volcano. well, y’know, at least it’s not a potato battery, i’ll give it that, but it’s not exactly original, is it? you know what i mean? like, not any primary research, even with a child scientist.’ stepping over a loose vine, chell leans towards the decaying papier-mache, eyes flickering over the sad little invention as it keels slowly over. remarkable, how these little creations had lasted so long. ‘i’m guessing this wasn’t one of the scientist’s children, y’know, don’t wanna be snobby, but, let’s be honest it’s got, it’s got manual labourer written all over it, hasn’t it?’ and he laughs, albeit a little nervously, as if he expects her to laugh too. ‘i’m not saying they’re not as good as the rest of the professionals, you know, they’re just - just a lot dumber.’ shooting a glance over her shoulder, steely and cold, she carries on, scanning each project in search of her own. instead, she finds names she recognises, drawings she swears she’s already seen.

turning a corner, she skitters to a stop, long fall boots clicking skittishly on the tiled floor, snagging on a branch. there, dominating everything else in the room, is a spire of a tenacious potato plant, thick and mutated and growing against all odds. she smiles. who could this belong to but her? ‘look at that, it’s growing right into the ceiling! the whole place is probably overrun with potatoes at this point, isn’t it? at least you won’t starve, though.’ ignoring him, she steps forward slowly, cautiously, as if one wrong move will send her sprawling. reaching out her free hand, chell traces one of the star stickers on her little presentation, scanning over the information and laughing ever-so-quietly at her stubborn writings.

just like that, the floodgates open: she sees herself, hair pulled into two pigtails, sat on the floor with pencil in hand, calling out to her father on the other side of the room. he looks up from his computer with a smile ( and brown eyes ), tells her that he hypothesises that whoever ordered the potatoes will most likely be fired. she laughs, a bubbly laugh that seems to never end, and pens this statement down obediently, thinking of how much her friends will laugh when she tells them. she sees herself glumly watching a volt counter go up, plugged into the small potato, the crease above her nose brand new and curious instead of angry when there is more power than expected. she sees herself staring around at the tens of other potato batteries, mourning her wasted potential.

her finger, still tracing a star pattern relentlessly, drifts to the corner of her middle panel: ‘by chell.’ she wonders if that same little girl is still alive somewhere, giggling at her father’s silly jokes. she thinks that the little girl died in the walls of aperture long ago.

something solid and cold settles in her gut, and she turns and walks briskly away, taking her companion by surprise. there’s a long creak as he shutters forward on his management rail, showering sparks and rust over the both of them. he witters away about where they’re going, but for some time she can only think about where she has been – when her biggest problem was wanting to do something new and interesting to set her apart on bring your daugter to work day.

it’s been easy for her to forget. she’s learning that maybe she doesn’t need to.


End file.
